


Won't Live to See Tomorrow

by hetrez



Series: The Door Is Open Wide [2]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-09
Updated: 2014-02-09
Packaged: 2018-01-11 18:34:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1176472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hetrez/pseuds/hetrez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Grant says, "I am normally a nicer and more genuine person. But I have been awake for twenty-four hours and had a fucking obnoxious day, so I'm only going to say this once. Stop singing, or I will end your life."</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Won't Live to See Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to The Coulson Uncertainty Principle, detailing what happened to Ward after he was sent to pick up Wade Wilson from the jailhouse in Brooklyn.
> 
> Title from the song "Secret Agent Man" written by P.F. Sloan and Steve Barri.
> 
> Y'all, Google must think I am the most inept criminal. I have so far researched pipe bombs, countries without an extradition treaty, what happens to you after you get arrested, and mafia ties in NYC. If anyone from the NSA is reading this, I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> PS, the yelp page for [New York's Central Booking](http://www.yelp.com/biz/manhattan-central-booking-new-york) is freaking gold. The first entry starts, "#1: HOW do you 'review' being arrested?" and just gets better from there.

Grant is a professional, so he doesn't take his extreme frustration with his existence out on the assholes at Brooklyn 79.

"What do you mean, he's at Central Booking?" he asks.

The officer at the front desk, Sanders, cowers a little bit. But Officer Cohen, standing behind him, rolls her eyes.

"I mean back off my rookie," Cohen says, putting a hand on the kid's shoulder. The kid looks equally terrified of Grant and of Cohen. Grant would smile, but he's on duty. "He's not here. We processed his ass."

"Processing takes four hours, minimum," Grant says. Agent Coulson will never, ever find out how he knows that. "He should still be here."

There are two other officers standing by the vending machines, just watching the action. Grant stares at them until they look away.

"So we're models of efficiency," Cohen says. Her expression is that perfect New York mix of aggressive and bored. "You got a problem?"

Generally, yes, Grant has a problem with the police. Tonight, however, he has about seventeen different problems, the police being only six of them. "No, ma'am. I appreciate an organization that performs its duties to the fullest."

She takes her hand off the kid's shoulder, and the kid sighs in relief. "All right, then. You have a good night, Agent --"

"Actually, I'd like to see your fingerprint records, photographs and surveillance video," Grant says.

Cohen narrows her eyes.

"Officer," Grant says, putting on his best block-of-wood face. "The man you processed is a very important witness in an ongoing federal investigation. Any efforts of the New York City police to obstruct or impede this investigation will go very badly for your supervisors, and therefore for you." When in doubt, lie.

Cohen thinks about this for a minute. "Why isn't the FBI here? Why isn't my liaison here?"

Grant says, "Classified, ma'am."

Cohen scowls.

He tries, "I drew the short straw," and it seems to convince her. A depressing number of people will believe that about him.

Cohen has Sanders, the rookie, lead Grant into the bowels of the building. As he leaves the front room, he hears one of the officers at the vending machine ask, "C'mon, Maureen, why'd you gotta give him a hard time? SHIELD helped in the Battle of New York, same as everybody."

Cohen says, "No, the Avengers helped. SHIELD sat around with their thumbs up their asses until it was time to clean up. Now get off my tits, Perez."

Grant hears laughter before the partition door shuts behind him.

Sanders leads him to evidence first, where another aggressive/bored officer insists on seeing Grant's SHIELD badge before he hands over the asset's guns.

"Your guy was crazy as shit, you know that?" the officer asks, shuffling through paperwork. "Came in bleeding from both shoulders, giggling and talking about men who didn't exist."

"Wait, he's wounded?" Grant asks. He shouldn't be surprised, but he is disappointed. The asset will be harder to protect if he's hurt.

"Yeah, Hawkeye got him with arrows in his arms. It was pretty sweet."

Sanders clears his throat. "Johnson," he hisses.

"What?" Johnson asks. "This guy don't care. He's probably going to lock that fruit cake up in Guantanamo or something. Aren't you, boss?"

Grant says, "Classified."

Johnson laughs. "That's what I thought. Here, these are the tickets for all his shit. Lemme go get everything. It'll be like he never existed."

Grant says, "My agency thanks you."

Johnson waves as he wanders through the stacks of evidence. Sanders looks at him and says, "You don't keep records of, uh, anything we say here, do you?"

Grant says, "Classified," again, and the kid looks ill.

"Here we go," Johnson says, coming back with a _pile of weapons_ , holy Christ. "Three guns, all loaded. This one's nice, I saw it in a magazine. Three knives, only one of them with blood on it. And one grenade."

"Why is it double-bagged?" Grant asks.

Johnson raises his eyebrows. "Because of where we found it," he says.

Grant stares at the grenade. "You know what? You keep that," he says. It probably doesn't have any usable fingerprints anyway.

Johnson says, "Aw, come on," but Grant's already turning away with the other weapons, following Sanders to their records room. Wiping all trace of fingerprints, photographs and CCTV footage shouldn't take more than an hour, tops.

\-----

Grant fucking hates the Tombs. If he never has to smell that mix of shit and vomit and stale peanut butter and despair again it'll be too soon. He takes great, private delight in flashing his badge at every cop who gives him the side-eye.

"What does SHIELD want this guy for again?" The officer on desk duty asks. His particular cranky/bored expression is mixed with judgment.

Grant tries to convey _I kill people for a living_ without changing his expression. He needs to ask May how she does it. "Classified," he says.

"Yeah, well, he broke into Hawkeye's apartment. You know that? I hope whatever you guys want with him involves some waterboarding." Grant doesn't answer. "Is that what you do? Track down everybody who takes a whack at a superhero and disappear them?"

The lieutenant, Markoff, appears behind the desk officer. "Agent Ward?" She asks. "Come with me."

Grant is very happy to get away from Officer Waterboarding Is Great. He has a moment of deja vu as he's being led down the stairs, and has to dig his fingers into his palm to ground himself.

The smell is, of course, worse in the basement, and when the prisoners see Grant there is a series of catcalls and whistles. There are at least thirty people in the bullpen, and at the moment they are all focused on Grant.

"Hey, pretty boy," a frat douchebag type with a bloody gash on his forehead bats his eyes at Grant.

The man sitting next to this kid looks like a gladiator, the kind from the cheesy 90s tv show. He says, "Shut the fuck up," without opening his eyes, and fratbro looks chastened.

"Hubba hubba," someone yells. Grant keeps his face impassive. He has enough guns to shoot them all; he can afford to be magnanimous.

"Will you be my sugardaddy?" someone else calls.

Grant is bracing himself to walk inside this cesspool of humanity when the lieutenant glides right past it and keeps walking. Grant frowns.

"I thought you were leading me to the prisoner," he says.

"I am," Markoff says, looking grim. As they walk away from the bullpen the sound of crying and marriage proposals quiets down. It's replaced by the sound of a man singing"Que Sera Sera" in a horrible grating screech.

Grant has a bad feeling. "Is that him?"

Markoff stops in the hallway and turns to Grant. She puts her hand on his shoulder and leans in. She says, "Agent Ward, I will pay you to take this asshole off our hands. I will pay you in inter-agency cooperation vouchers and fucking lobster, I do not care. Please get him out of my house."

Grant says, "I will, ma'am."

Coulson is going to owe him so big.

\-----

Central Booking has Grant's asset in a small med room at the end of a narrow hallway. He is being guarded by a miserable-looking officer while an EMT works on bandaging his left shoulder. His right shoulder is already a mass of gauze, and his right arm is secured to his chest in a sling. He grins when Grant and Markoff walk in. "Sweetheart!" he says.

"Shut up," Markoff says. She looks at the EMT. "You all set?"

The EMT grabs another sling and shoves the asset's arm into it. The man grunts, but his expression doesn't change. "Yeah, we're good to go."

"All right," Markoff says. "Sackler, Minetti, get out of here. Go somewhere quiet for a half hour."

"Thank God," the EMT mutters.

The asset says, "Aw, where are you going? I was just getting to the good part of the song. When I was just a little girl," he sings, "I asked my teacher, what should I try?"

Grant turns to Markoff, and asks, "Can I have a moment with the prisoner, please?"

Technically, the answer to that should be 'no' until the official handoff, even if Grant is blacking out all paperwork and records. Tonight, Markoff says, "Yes," and turns on her heel right away. Sackler and Minetti hurry after her.

Then Grant is alone in the med room with the asset. They stare at each other for a minute. Grant feels like he's being sized up by a feral bobcat.

The asset asks, "Coulson send you?"

Grant says, "Yes. I'm with the Strategic Homeland Investigation, Enforcement and Logistics Division. I'm here to take you to our New York Headquarters so they can vet you."

The asset looks at him for another minute, and then switches to his vaudeville persona like flicking on a light. "Excellent. I'm Wade. Hey, you like Doris Day?" He sings, "Will I paint pictures, will I sing songs? This was her --"

Grant is a professional, so he does not massage the headache building in his temples. Instead he walks up to to Wade and looms in his face. He says, "I am normally a nicer and more genuine person. But I have been awake for twenty-four hours and had a fucking obnoxious day, so I'm only going to say this once. Stop singing, or I will end your life."

Wade freezes, mouth open.

"Now, we are going to leave here, and drive the four miles to Times Square in silence. I am going to hand you off to people with much more patience than I have, and they'll make sure your wounds are healing properly and that you get the foreign asset orientation briefing. Sound good?"

Wade shuts his mouth, and then he grins and says, "I like you."

Johnson was right; this man is nuttier than a fruitcake. "So you'll stop singing?" Grant asks.

Wade says, "Sure, man. Whatever you like."

Grant is absolutely certain that's not true. "Come on," he says. "I have a car outside." The trip to Times Square from Chinatown shouldn't take more than twenty minutes, and then Grant can rejoin his team and get some actual work done.

\-----

Sixth Ave stays clogged until the wee hours, most nights, so Grant drives them up Bowery instead. Wade gives him exactly four minutes of silence, and then asks, "What did you do to piss him off?"

"Excuse me?" Grant asks.

Wade shrugs. Both of his shoulders are bulked up with gauze bandages, and his arms are slung criss-cross over his chest, so the shrug is both elaborate and hilarious. "You definitely drew the short straw, coming to get me. I'm curious what you did. Sleep with his girlfriend? Kill his dog? What?"

Grant stops at a red light and prays for patience. "I'm good at my job. My job sometimes consists of transporting newly-recruited assets to SHIELD Headquarters."

Wade opens his mouth to answer, and then a silver van comes up on their right side, and Grant has to jerk his SHIELD-issue SUV forward into the intersection to keep from getting t-boned. The van clips their back bumper and another van coming up on the left knocks into their crumple zone, and Grant slams on the breaks. The SUV screeches to a halt in the middle of the intersection, and one more van drives up behind them. They are surrounded.

"Whoops, they found me," Wade says.

The van doors open and men in tracksuits start spilling out.

"Who found you?" Grant asks, grabbing for his seat belt. He has four guns, five knives, a packet of flash powder, and an incapacitated man to protect. He gives it even odds.

"The guys who hired me don't like it when their people leave jobs unfinished." Wade sounds unbothered.

Grant wants to smack him. Instead he says, "You were sent for Hawkeye. People who go after him generally leave the job unfinished." He shakes Wade's seat belt loose.

"Yup. Hey, give me a knife."

Outside, a man taller than Grant wanders up, carrying a baseball bat across both shoulders. "Bro!" he yells. "Come on out, man. You got something belong to us."

Grant grabs under the seat for his extra ammunition, and says, "You can't move your arms."

Wade says, "I can still fight."

"Bro-o," the big man yells. He walks up and whacks the bat against the windshield, which cracks but doesn't shatter.

Grant says, "Just be quiet and stay close to me."

"Aw, come on!" Wade says.

The big man whacks his bat against the windshield again, and the glass dents inward with a sickening crunch.

"All right," Grant calls. "We're coming out."

"Just give me a knife!" Wade hisses.

"Shut up," Grant says. "When I say get down, get down."

Grant steps out of the car with his hands up. Outside, he can see there are at least fifteen gym rat bruisers in tracksuits standing in a rough circle around them. He walks to the front of the SUV, where the bumper is hanging off of one side, and waits until Wade sidles up next to him. He turns to the big man with the bat and asks, "What's the problem, friend?"

The big man says, "The problem is this one." He points his bat at Wade, who wiggles his hand in a wave. "We'll take him, and you can go on your way, yes?"

Grant tilts his head to the side. "Well, I did promise my boss I'd bring him in."

The big man says, "I could hit you?"

Grant is a professional, so he doesn't smile. "You could try."

The big man grins and swings at him with the bat. Grant ducks under the swing and comes up right in front of the man, cracking the handle of his knife against the man's jaw. The man reels backwards and Grant turns to grab the bat. Another man comes up behind him, and two more bear down in front. Grant swings the bat around so that it hits the man behind him in the shoulder, and then he drops it to his left hand and uses his right to slash at the faces of the men in front of him. They both stumble back but stay standing. Behind him he hears a screech.

"You're not my daddy!" Wade yells.

Grant turns just in time to duck under a punch and sees Wade ramming a man in the stomach with his bandaged shoulder. When a second man comes up behind Wade, he kicks out like a horse and the man drops, clutching his belly.

Grant has a moment to be impressed, and then he's surrounded by assholes. He loses sight of Wade as he knocks the end of the bat into one man's face, and slashes another man's chest with his knife. He drives his elbow into a man's neck and then there are too many too close. He ducks down and rolls, coming up behind a group of them and knocking them in the backs of their heads with the butt of his handgun.

He hears Wade yell, "Ha-ha!" and then hears a pained walrus bellow. He glances over to see the big man clutching at his eyes while blood streams down his face.

Grant has hostiles coming at him from the front and the sides, so he tips backwards into a roll and comes up near Wade, settling so they're back to back in front of the SUV. There look to be about eight men left and they're regrouping.

Grant says, "Whatever that move is, I want it." He's gasping and dripping sweat, but he is thrumming and angry and feels so goddamn good. He might have wrenched his shoulder, but he just does not care right now.

Wade says, "Give me a knife and you've got a deal."

Grant hands a knife back without turning, and feels Wade fumble for it. He reaches for his packet of flash powder, holding it in his left hand while he grabs for the Night-Night gun in his right. Then another silver van pulls into the intersection, and seven more men in tracksuits jump out.

"Oh, that's not good," Wade says.

Grant agrees. With the way he feels, eight hostiles would be a good time, but fifteen is a problem. He lifts the flash powder and gets ready to throw, when one of the men from the new car starts yelling at the others in Russian.

Grant's Russian is execrable, but he can recognize the word 'stop' when he hears is. He says, "Wait, I think something's happening," and feels the muscles of Wade's back move as he nods.

The new leader finishes shouting at the big man, whose eyes have stopped bleeding, and then walks over to Grant and Wade. Grant tenses and comes up a little on his toes.

"This is a mistake, then, yeah?" the new leader says.

Grant has no idea what he's talking about.

"My boss, he says fighting Hawkeye is bad for business, so we go. No hard feelings, eh?"

Grant nods, trying to catch his breath, and the new leader nods at him.

The man says, "We won't come after you, and you won't come after us. All right?"

Grant is sleep-deprived, jacked up on adrenaline, sporting a busted shoulder and confused as hell, but he knows better than to say yes to this. "Your boss will have to contact my supervisor," he says.

The new leader frowns.

Grant says, "Do you negotiate without your boss's permission?"

The new leader tilts his head to the side, and says, "No, that's true. Who shall I have him call?"

Grant says, "Nick Fury of SHIELD."

The man nods, and then the entire passel of tracksuited bruisers decamp to their vans and drive away. No more than two minutes after Grant has last spoken, he and Wade are alone in the middle of the intersection at Bowery and Bleecker. They stand back to back for another minute, and then turn to look at each other.

Wade has the knife gripped awkwardly in his right hand, and has somehow gained a pair of brass knuckles on his left. He asks, "Do you know what the hell just happened?"

Grant wipes his forehead, and tucks the Night-Night gun back into his jacket. "No idea."

Wade leans over to offer the knife to Grant. "Well, I had fun."

Grant nods. He goes over to the SUV and pulls himself up into the driver seat. Various aches and scrapes are making themselves known, and one side of his face feels smeary and disgusting, like he got dragged through a garbage bin on his cheek. He turns the key in the ignition, and nothing happens.

Well, shit.

\-----

SHIELD sends a tow truck and a medical team. By the time they get to the intersection, Wade has started whistling "Secret Agent Man", and Grant isn't shutting him up. Grant has moved past tiredness and the adrenaline crash to some punchy fugue state where bonding with a new asset through shitty TV theme songs is a good idea. The medic laughs at them as she checks the mobility on Grant's arm.

"How are your shoulders?" Grant calls out to Wade, who is getting his bandages replaced

"Excellent," Wade says. "Better than ever. Hey, man, that stings."

"You did pretty good back there, for not having any working arms."

There's silence for a minute, and then Wade says, "Thanks, man." He sounds a little lost.

Grant's medic gives him a pat on his good arm and says, "You're all set."

"Thank you," Grant says, smiling at her. She frowns and leans back. He has to figure out why people keep doing that.

"Oh, hey," Wade says. Another SHIELD issue SUV pulls up level with Grant's busted vehicle, and a Level 3 security specialist leans her head out the window. "Our ride's here."

Grant and Wade are chauffeured the three and a half miles north to Times Square, which would be humiliating under any other circumstances. Right now it's a relief. Around 15th Street, Wade shimmies his rebandaged shoulders and asks, "Why did you say that, back there?"

Grant can almost see the agent at the wheel perk up her ears.

"Which part?" Grant asks.

"About who he should contact," Wade says.

Oh. Well. There are actually several good reasons for that, from protocol to Grant's gut instinct to the fact that he wants to keep Coulson's whereabouts a secret from SHIELD for as long as he can. But that's not why he did it.

"Just rolling some shit uphill," he says.

Wade turns and watches him. In the low light, with his bandages and scrapes, Wade looks ragged and tired. But he's lost the edge of jittery nutsiness, and seems almost -- _almost_ \-- calm. Grant thinks he wouldn't mind fighting back to back with this guy out in the field. He quirks a tiny smile, and Wade smiles back.

Wade says, "You know, Ward? You're okay."

"You know what," Grant says. "I am."

They both sag back into their seats. Grant still has orders to carry out. He should plan his best route from Headquarters to Stark Tower to remain undetected. He should think about exactly what he wants to tell whoever debriefs him, to keep Coulson's influence a secret. He should be preparing for whatever is waiting for him back at the Tower.

Instead, he starts whistling "Secret Agent Man". After a minute, Wade joins him.


End file.
